Wyatt
I woke at six. Habit, not necessity. Years of morning skates and five a.m. workouts had wired my body to reject sleep past dawn.
The house was silent. Empty-feeling. Exactly how I preferred it.
I rolled out of bed and headed downstairs, expecting solitude.
Expecting to have the kitchen to myself for at least another hour while she hid in that guest room and pretended she could avoid the inevitable.
She'd probably barricade herself in there.
Sulk. Maybe refuse to go entirely and force me to drag her out kicking and screaming.
That would be inconvenient. But manageable.
I rounded the corner into the kitchen and stopped.
She was already there. Standing near the counter.
Back straight. Hands clasped in front of her like she was waiting to be called into a meeting.
Dressed. Simple cream sweater that looked soft even from across the room.
A skirt that hit just above her knees. Dark tights.
Ankle boots. Hair down, falling in loose waves over her shoulders.
Minimal makeup. Just enough to look polished.
Not enough to look like she was trying too hard.
She looked... believable. Exactly what I'd told her to wear without being told explicitly.
Smart girl.
But something was off.
Her eyes had shadows underneath them. Dark smudges that no amount of concealer could fully hide. Her skin looked pale. Drawn. Like she'd spent the night staring at the ceiling instead of sleeping.
I grabbed a mug from the cabinet. Poured coffee. Let the silence stretch while I decided how to play this.
She didn't look at me. Kept her gaze fixed somewhere past my shoulder. On the window. The wall. Anywhere but my face.
Good.
Distance was easier.
Safer.
For both of us.
I took a sip. Black. No sugar. The bitterness grounded me. Sharpened my focus.
She shifted her weight. Fidgeted with her sleeves. Then caught herself and stopped.
Another tell.
She was nervous. Uncomfortable. Probably replaying last night in her head and hating every second of it.
I should have felt satisfied. This was the plan. Keep her off-balance. Keep her compliant. Use her presence to humiliate her father and destabilize the merger from the inside.
She took a breath. Not the shallow, panicked kind from last night when I'd touched her hair.
This one was deeper. Steadier. The kind someone took when they were bracing themselves for impact.
Not fear. Resolve. She was steeling herself.
Preparing to walk into that café and perform exactly as instructed.
No tantrums. No dramatics. No running back to Daddy. Just quiet, stubborn determination.
I respected that more than I should have. More than was safe.
I set the mug down. Let the ceramic clink against granite.
She finally looked at me. Brief. Guarded. Then away again.
"Ready?" I kept my voice flat. Neutral.
She nodded once. Didn't trust herself to speak.
I grabbed my keys from the counter. "Let's go."
We headed into the garage together. She opened the passenger door and slid inside without hesitation. No dramatics. No last-minute refusal.
I appreciated efficiency.
I set my phone in the console between us. Started the car. The engine purred to life, smooth and quiet. German engineering. Reliable. Predictable. Unlike everything else in my life right now.
I shifted into reverse, hand moving to the gear shift—Her fingers jerked back from the console. Fast. Instinctive. Like I'd burned her.
I pretended not to notice. Kept my expression neutral. Eyes on the rearview. But I noticed.
She was jumpy. Not because I was a monster. Not because she thought I'd hurt her. But because she didn't know what I was yet. Didn't know if I was safe or dangerous. Controlled or volatile. Whether the calm was real or just the eye of something worse.
Uncertainty kept people honest.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the main road. No music. No radio. Just the hum of tires on pavement and the faint sound of her breathing.
She sat rigid. Hands folded in her lap. Gaze fixed on the road ahead like she was memorizing the route. Planning an escape.
Halfway there, she broke the silence. "Do we..." Her voice was quiet. Careful. "Do we hold hands? Or wait until we're out of the car?"
I pressed my tongue against my teeth to stop a laugh.
This girl.
Too literal.
Too earnest.
Too completely unaware of how my world worked.
She wasn't asking to manipulate. Wasn't playing games or fishing for reassurance. She genuinely wanted to know the choreography. Like this was a dance she could master if someone just showed her the steps.
"Not in the car." I kept my tone flat. Matter-of-fact. "Outside."
"Okay."
Her voice was small. But not weak. Not defeated. Just... compliant. She'd do what was necessary. Follow the rules. Play her part. Because she believed it was temporary.
Thirty days.
Then freedom.
I tightened my grip on the wheel and kept driving.
She had no idea how quickly thirty days could rewrite a life.
The café appeared through the windshield like a gauntlet. Too many people clustered on the sidewalk. Phones already raised. Faces turned toward the street like they'd been waiting.
My jaw ticked. I hadn't expected this many. Word must have spread faster than I'd calculated. The statement went live last night. Eight hours was apparently enough time for every wannabe journalist and social media vulture to stake out the most likely spots.
Effective. But inconvenient.
I parked along the curb. Cut the engine. Didn't look at her yet.
The cameras swiveled toward us like predators catching scent.
I stepped out. Shut my door. Walked around the hood with deliberate calm. No rush. No hesitation. Just a man picking up his girlfriend for coffee.
I opened her door before she could reach for the handle. Not chivalry. Control.
The flashes erupted immediately. Rapid-fire bursts of light. Voices overlapping. Questions shouted from too many directions at once.
She flinched. Subtle. But I saw it.
Her hand shot instinctively toward her purse strap—some kind of nervous anchor. A tell she didn't know she had.
I took her hand before her fingers found the leather.
Her breath stuttered. A soft, sharp inhale that I felt more than heard.
Her palm was warm. Delicate. Smaller than I'd expected, though I had no reason to have expected anything at all.
She didn't pull away. Didn't fight it. Just stood there blinking against the camera flashes, fingers trembling slightly in mine.
More affected than she wanted me to see.
Authenticity sold better than acting.
I leaned down slightly. Close enough that my voice stayed private. Low. Just for her. "Relax. We practiced this."
Her response came through gritted teeth, barely audible beneath the noise. "You practiced. I panicked."
Something almost resembling amusement flickered in my chest. Brief. Unwelcome. I crushed it immediately.
But the corner of my mouth threatened to curve, anyway.
I didn't let it.
We were surrounded. Watched. Recorded from a dozen angles.
Every micro-expression would be analyzed.
Dissected. Captioned and shared within the hour.
So I squeezed her hand once. Grounding. Steadying.
And pulled her forward into the storm. The cameras closed in.
The questions grew louder. Someone shouted her name. Someone else shouted mine.
I kept my expression neutral. Bored, even. Like this was routine. Like she'd been beside me a hundred times before. Like I wasn't acutely aware of the exact pressure of her fingers against mine. Performance had begun. And she was holding on tighter than either of us had planned.
I guided her inside with a hand at her lower back. She stiffened immediately. Body going rigid under my palm. Every muscle locked tight like she'd been shocked. Then—slowly—she softened. Not surrender. Not seduction. Something worse.
Trust.
Her spine relaxed incrementally. Her breathing evened out. Like my hand there steadied her instead of threatened her. Like she'd decided—consciously or not—that I was safer than the chaos behind us.
I hated how much I noticed.
The exact moment her shoulders dropped. The way her weight shifted slightly toward me instead of away. The warmth of her body through that cream sweater that looked even softer up close than it had across my kitchen.
I shouldn't have been cataloging any of it. This was choreography. Performance. A transaction with a thirty-day expiration date. Nothing more.
I stepped up to the counter. Ordered. Black coffee for me. Something complicated and sweet for her—caramel latte, extra foam, because girls like her always ordered things like that. Predictable. Safe. Exactly what the cameras would expect.
She didn't correct me. Just stood close because she had to. Because the café was crowded and the phones were still pointed at us through the windows. Because distance would break the illusion we'd spent last night building.
Then—without prompting, without direction, without me telling her to—her fingers curled around my arm. Light. Delicate. Just above my elbow.
Her thumb brushed against the fabric of my jacket once. Twice. A small, unconscious rhythm that had nothing to do with cameras and everything to do with needing something solid to hold onto.
People were watching. Phones were recording. She thought this was expected. Thought she was playing her part correctly.
But the touch was soft. Genuine. Not fake. Not rehearsed. Something in my chest did a small, unwelcome shift. Like a bone settling wrong after a hit. Uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Dangerous.
Too natural.
Too believable.
Too easy.
She fit there. Against my side. Under my arm. Like she'd done it a hundred times instead of once. Like her body had already decided what her mind refused to accept—that proximity to me wasn't a threat.